"The Marriage of Figaro," at Leverett House this weekend

PEOPLE do not go to the opera to see good theatre, any more than they go to baseball games for the organ music. Operas performed in this country tend to be done in languages which neither the singers nor the audience understand, mainly to spare everyone the agony of an evening of insipid plot and badly worded dialogue. This is especially true of the comic opera, where a libretto is mainly a skeleton to drape music around, and the plot is filled with improbabilities acted out by impossible characters.

The Marriage of Figaro is a case in point, a pleasant, musically solid, but not inventive piece which would never survive as a play. Left in Italian, the audience might think it vaguely believable, even intelligent. Leverett House, however, has changed the second rate Italian of the original into third rate English, and tried to present it as a sort of Gilbert and Sullivan with real music. The producers of the Leverett House Figaro seem to think that there is some theatrical merit to da Ponti's book; if the libretto indeed has any function, it is as a bad example. Even Neil Simon would blush at the plot, the story of a newlywed bridegroom trying to keep his lecherous employer from exercising droit de seigneur.

The director of Figaro, David Bartholomew, has tried hard to exploit the meager theatrical possibilities in the opera, and succeeded in producing a decent acting performance from a cast of singers-a difficult job. But the Leverett House production would have done better if it hadn't tried to create theatre where none exists. A garbled translation into lackluster prose is just not enough basis for a theatrical blockbuster.

Figaro is good solid Mozart, respectable but not too difficult for a good orchestra. John Miner, the conductor, rehearsed his orchestra well, and put together a tight performance. Miner is an enthusiastic conductor whose beats are impossible to follow as his arms go flailing through the air (in one particularly violent tutti, his cufflink flew off and hit me on an upbeat). He has the orchestra and continuo well under control, and the singers cued in well.

LEE EVANS as Figaro has a strong and mature voice, although his bearings and mannerisms are perhaps a bit too ingenuous for the part. Jo Ella Todd holds her own as Susanna, with a clear-voiced elegance and presence. Richard Gill's voice is made for Italian opera, and a good makeup and costuming job made a convincing Count Almaviva out of him, while Elizabeth Phinney, who has the commanding character of the Countess down to a science, was the best of the female leads.

Barbara Winchester's Cherubino left me uneasy, partly, perhaps, because of the concept of a woman playing a young man. But Miss Winchester failed to establish much credibility in her role, and was, throughout the evening, all too obviously a woman in a man's role.

Leverett's Figaro is a competent production of a venerable warhorse, not as good as the Met, certainly, but good for an amateur group. But the whole concept of a House hiring an outside conductor, director, orchestra and leads, at an enormous cost, in order to produce an opera which is by no means a novelty, is unsettling. This is the second time in three years that Leverett House has done Figaro, and it seems a waste of time and effort to recover old ground.